Re: ChangeLogs in commit messages

[Doug Evans <dje@google.com>]

On Tue, Sep 16, 2014 at 2:31 AM, Gary Benson <gbenson@redhat.com> wrote:
> Doug Evans wrote:
>> On Mon, Sep 15, 2014 at 9:05 AM, Joel Brobecker <brobecker@adacore.com> wrote:
>> > > There's still something missing (IIUC).
>> > > One of the problems that needs to be solved is documenting the
>> > > author in the patch submission (the email that goes to the
>> > > list).  The above convention allows for a default where the
>> > > absence of a name means author == committer, but we're still not
>> > > specifying an absolute requirement that the patch author appears
>> > > in the email sent to the list.
>> > > Am I missing something?
>> >
>> > I am not sure I understand what you are trying to say: You are now
>> > establishing that there are 3 users, not 2. author, submitter, and
>> > committer. Why do we need the submitter's name in the revision
>> > log?
>>
>> We don't need the submitter's name in the revision log.  I was
>> referring to the patch author appearing in the email sent to the
>> list.
>>
>> Pedro wrote "I think author info must be explicit in patch submissions
>> somehow."
>> ref: https://sourceware.org/ml/gdb/2014-09/msg00038.html
>> Read the full text of 00038 for more context.
>>
>> I agree.
>>
>> The changes specified in
>> https://sourceware.org/ml/gdb/2014-09/msg00052.html
>> do not address this, yet in the text of that email (00052)
>> Pedro's comment is included (again, ref: 00052).
>
> We inline the ChangeLog entries in the patch submission emails, eg
> https://sourceware.org/ml/gdb-patches/2014-09/msg00286.html
> so the optional author lines would be inlined right there.

I don't understand.
The ChangeLog diff is not included in the "patch" in 00286 and unless
things have changed recently we still discourage that.  So for the
nonce I'm going to assume you're not talking about adding ChangeLog
diffs to patches (though that would solve the problem of making the
author explicit - I'm not suggesting this as a solution though).

I guess I still don't see how this proposed change makes author
specification *explicit* in patch submissions, unless you are also
saying that the absence of author info means the patch submitter is
the author.
This might be ok, but that's not a definition of "explicit" that I've
been employing here.
And it is a departure from how patches have been submitted in the past
where the full changelog entry is always cut-n-pasted to the top of
the patch and it includes author info.
Has your definition of the word "explicit" been different than mine?